Abstract : X-ray emission of mid to high Z plasmas not in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) is particularly difficult to modelize due to high number of electronic transitions to take into account. Studying X-ray emission from L-shell and M-shell transitions is extremely interesting, for both benchmarking numerical calculations (especially in non LTE conditions) and understanding of non LTE atomic physic in hot and dense plasmas.
Experiments have been developed with the issue of measuring as completely as possible and in independent ways the X-ray emission and the hydrodynamic evolution of the studied plasmas. These plasmas were created using high energy lasers, from solid targets, aiming to observe L-shell (bromine, niobium) or M-shell (tantalum, tungsten) emission. The experimental setup has been improved over the time, including front and rear hydrodynamic diagnostics, which allow constraining numerical simulations describing the whole plasma evolution.
Then spectra were calculated by atomic physic codes, using hydrodynamic conditions determined from measurements. Measurements and simulations are in good agreement, especially for M-shell emission spectra, however calculations still lacks details to finely reproduce the observed structures, which affects mainly L-shell emission spectra.